French Mps Vote for Veil Ban in State Schools

The French national assembly voted overwhelmingly yesterday in favour of a ban on Islamic veils in state schools, despite new warnings from religious leaders that the law would persecute Muslims and encourage fundamentalism.

After 21 hours of parliamentary speeches and months of heated national debate, MPs voted 494-36 in favour of banning "conspicuous" religious symbols in the schools. The law, to be ratified by the senate next month, will come into force in September.

"This law is indispensable for us," said Martine David, a Socialist MP, adding that teachers "need a clear judicial framework".

The house speaker, Jean-Louis Debré, said the law was a "clear affirmation that public school is a place for learning, not for militant activity or proselytism".

The law, which has wide public support in France, is meant to protect the country's strictly secular state from the perceived threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Secularism was established after the 1789 revolution to guarantee equality and freedom for all. Religion is seen as a private matter.

The ban, which also covers Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, has drawn heavy fire abroad, including criticism from the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London.

Leading French Muslims said the law was discriminatory and would create more problems than it solved.

Farhad Khosrokhavar, a sociologist, said only 20% of France's 5 million Muslims are "religiously minded". But he added: "Even those who do not wear the headscarf are likely to feel offended because it is a denial of personal rights. Instead of fighting against Islamic radicalism it might encourage it, precisely because of this feeling of stigmatisation."

Lhaj-Thami Breze, head of the fundamentalist Union of French Islamic Organisations, said the majority of devout Muslims in France "want to practise their religion in peace and in total respect of the law.

"But when you persecute, when you make fun of, when you refuse, when you don't respect beliefs, what is the consequence? The consequence is radicalisation."

Dounia Bouzar, an anthropologist and member of the French Council of the Muslim Faith said that wearing the hijab was a way for girls to stay close to their families while challenging other traditions such as arranged marriages.

"Religion has replaced ethnic origin as a way to stay loyal," said Ms Bouzar. "The link to mama and papa is no longer by being Moroccan or Algerian, but by being Muslim. That gives them more flexibility to say: 'Mum, nowhere in scripture does it say I have to marry my cousin.'"

When girls do come under pressure from fathers, brothers or imams to wear the veil, moderate Muslim leaders have warned that the law will force girls out of the state system and into private Islamic institutions, or home tuition.

Others say the veil ban hides the 30-year failure of France's republican integration policy, seen in the discrimination suffered by its Muslim community in education, jobs and housing.

"It's not a few words banning conspicuous signs of faith that we need, it's a whole package of laws guaranteeing proper social integration," a French MEP, Sami Naïr, said yesterday.

Alain Madelin, one of the 36 opposing MPs, agreed: "We may end up with fewer veils in schools, but we'll have more in the housing estates."

Two amendments were agreed last week to obtain the largest possible majority. These ensure that punishment under the law is preceded by a dialogue with the pupil, and a review of the law after a year.

Greville Janner, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, said that French legislators had "disgracefully punished the entire Muslim population and other religious communities".